She took that skin between her teeth and licked.
His hips bucked, and she gloried in the way he ground against her so fiercely, just for one mindless moment.
“What do you say, Marcus?” Back against that fence, where passersby couldn’t see, she slid both hands beneath his sweater and stroked up the satiny line of his spine, then dragged her nails lightly going back down. “Should I have you?”
He didn’t answer in words.
He didn’t need to.
It seemed she’d burned all the gentleness out of him, and good riddance. He fisted her hair in one hand and splayed the other wide on the swell of her ass, hauling her tighter against him. Her own sweater had ridden up, and those knit leggings didn’t blunt the sensation of his thigh nudging between hers, the jut of his cock against her belly.
She might have backed him into that fence, but she wasn’t in control. Not anymore.
“Turnabout,” he murmured against her neck, open mouth hot on her skin, and licked the spot. Nipped it. “You still have a mark here. Good.”
Her back hit the fence as he flipped their position, and he settled hard between her thighs. She huffed out a labored breath, dizzied and so fucking turned on she wanted to scratch and claw until he made the ache go away.
His teeth and tongue scored a path of fire up her neck, under her own jaw, and then—
Oh, his mouth claimed hers like a battle prize, hard and desperate, and she opened to the claim without hesitation.
Later they could try tender and sweet, but right now she wanted his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lower lip, and his groan swallowed by her panting breath. She wanted that possessive hold on her ass to squeeze her closer, closer, as the tug of her hair turned her nerve endings incandescent.
Here, he tasted like sugar instead of salt. Like mint. Like darkness and heat.
“So sweet,” he rasped, then slanted his fierce, reddened lips across hers once more, and she moaned into his mouth as he rubbed against her just right. His jeans were loose enough that she could slide both hands beneath the denim if she kept them flat, slide them beneath his ultra-soft underwear too, and then she was sinking her short, blunt nails into the satiny, clenching, round cheeks of his ass and staking her own claim.
At the sting, he ground against her again with a low, rough noise and twined their tongues greedily. His herbal scent was turning muskier, deeper by the moment, and her own overheated skin prickled with growing dampness.
He couldn’t wrap her legs around his waist and fuck her against this fence. Not in daylight. Not in public. Not given her size. But the next time she fished her technicolor vibrator from her nightstand, she had a new fantasy to ride to a bed-shaking orgasm.
When his mouth eventually lifted a hairsbreadth from hers, she chased it.
Then she heard the sound too.
“Hey, you two! Get off my property!” It was a disgusted shout, originating from the doorway of the house beyond the fence. “That’s way too much tongue for a Saturday morning!”
Marcus gave a quiet snort, and he whispered in her ear, “Apparently we can come back later this afternoon to dry-hump against his fence again.”
“During normal business hours.” Regretfully, she slid her hands out of his jeans. “Although there are also public indecency charges to consider.”
He rested his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, still breathless. “Fair point.”
Then, with an odd sort of groaning whine, he levered himself away from her and turned to offer the man in the doorway his usual charming smile. “Our apologies, sir. We’ll be on our way now.”
The man emitted an unappeased grunt and disappeared back inside his house.
As they returned to the sidewalk, Marcus cupped her hips and maneuvered her in front of him. Almost close enough to touch, but not quite. “Stay here for just a minute, please.”
If she arched her back just a tad . . . yes. There.
As her ass pressed against the ridge of his erection, his fingers tightened to a pleasurable bite through her leggings. “April . . .” He sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. “You’re not helping matters.”
Okay, then. No more below-the-waist contact, at least for now. Instead, she tipped back her head, laid it against his shoulder, and smiled as they waited for his body to calm. “Really? Because it felt like I was helping.”
“Helping me get arrested, maybe.”
“To echo a wise man: fair point.” Luckily, her current state of swollen arousal wasn’t quite so obvious, but God, she needed to squeeze her thighs together. “Want to hold my purse?”
“What does that have to do with—” He paused. “Oh. Yeah. That’ll probably work.”
Still, neither of them started walking. Instead, he hitched her a bit closer, and they just . . . cuddled for a minute, her head on his shoulder, his strong, broad hands lightly stroking her sides and hips and arms. When he eventually folded her into his embrace, she rested her arms on top of his.
After a moment, he kissed her temple, then laid his cheek there.
It was the gentleness she’d told herself she didn’t want.
Turned out she was a liar, because she wanted it all. His teeth and his tenderness. His pretty face and his laugh lines. The respected thespian and the hammy star of Sharkphoon.
The gold and the pyrite.
Turning her neck, she pressed a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Come home with me. Please.”
He didn’t hesitate, not even for a breath.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
MANMAID
EXT. SHORELINE AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFFS – DAWN
CARMEN has waded chest-deep into the surf, fully clothed, and TRITUS flicks his tail idly to stay upright before her, gazing adoringly into her seafoam-green eyes.
CARMEN
When will you return?
TRITUS
Whenever you need me.
She casts him a shy glance through her lashes.
CARMEN
What if . . . What if what I need from you, you can’t give?
He frowns, confused. Then realization dawns, and so does desire. He swims closer.
TRITUS
Trust me. I may only be half human, but I’m all man.
CARMEN
You mean . . . ?
TRITUS
Let me show you.
But as they touch for the first time, hands entwined, her legs against his tail, her eyes widen, and not in desire. Suddenly, she is struggling to breathe, gasping and staggering away from him.
CARMEN
My—my allergy! To kelp! I’d—
(gasps)
forgotten!
TRITUS
No! My curse! It has finally come to pass!
The tragedy of their love overwhelms him, and he swims away, disappearing beneath the waves.
16
“SO THIS IS WHERE I LIVE.” APRIL WAVED HIM INSIDE. “IT’S an in-law apartment, so I have my own entrance, and it’s relatively private.”
Marcus glanced around. “Looks like a great find, especially in this area.”
An open floor plan, excluding the bedrooms and bathroom. Not overly spacious, but cozy. Well maintained too, with gleaming hardwood floors and stainless appliances and marble-looking countertops. Once she had the chance to settle in, he suspected it would become much more welcoming than his own LA home with its aggressively modern interior design. Served him right for not overseeing the process himself, of course, but he’d been overseas at the time and eager to come back to a finished house.
“Sorry about the boxes.” April shifted from foot to foot. “I haven’t had time to put everything away or get art on the walls.”
The white marble console table in the entryway—she’d chosen stone rather than wood, no surprise there—didn’t wobble when he rested a hand on it, its surface cool and smooth and solid under his fingertips. “I’m impressed by everything you’ve managed to unpack in such a short amount of time.”
She pursed her lips, but her little hum sounded like doubt.
By the time he’d followed her to the apartment, some of her confidence and her unabashed, intoxicating sexual aggression had faded. Right now, her gaze was darting around the room, seemingly cataloging all the space’s flaws. This was as nervous as he’d ever seen her, and that included their first dinner together and their first encounter with paparazzi.
Which was unfortunate, because the change allowed his blood to cool and his head to clear too. Enough that he remembered his resolution to discuss one last sensitive topic with her before they bared themselves to one another.
Not that he’d assumed they would, and she could change her mind now or whenever she wanted. But he’d hoped. Fantasized.
“I know it’s not what you’re probably accustomed to—” she began.
“April.” He shook his head at her, an eyebrow raised in gentle reproof. “My parents are prep school teachers, remember? I grew up in a house not much larger than your apartment.”
Her face brightened slightly at the reminder, but the stiff set of her shoulders didn’t entirely ease. “That’s right. I’d forgotten.”
She was anxious about his judgment. That was obvious enough. What wasn’t: whether all her nervousness really stemmed from her half-settled home.
They’d come to her apartment for a purpose, one she’d made clear. But now that the prospect of so much intimacy, so much literal and figurative nakedness, loomed before them, did she worry he might judge her and find her lacking in an entirely different way?
“Umm . . .” She wandered toward the kitchen area. “Are you hungry? We could eat lunch, if you’d like. I have some leftover pizza. Some leftover fried rice too.” Her shoulder lifted, and she opened the refrigerator and scanned the shelves. “Sorry. I haven’t done much cooking since the move. Not that I cooked much before then, either.”
He wasn’t going to get a better opening than that.
She didn’t move from the refrigerator as he walked up behind her. Not even when he wrapped his arms around her from behind, looping them just above her waist. Her body was still within his embrace. Stiff, although she didn’t move away.